I mean that he tends to think top down too much. One end result that could have happened differently through no fault of the player in question causes massive changes in how he ranks a player. That's ridiculous. Any player comparison that doesn't seek to disentangle the performance of a player from that of the rest of his team is simply doing it wrong. It's essentially taking the real rankings and then throwing dice to mix them up.

Actually I think Simmons historical knowledge of basketball is really impressive. Of course KG fans hate Bill Simmons. Mainly because he said that 20 years from now stat guys are going to try to convince that KG was better than Duncan. He was wrong because they have already started. When in reality KG may not have been better than Dirk. The idea of Dirk going down as second best is not crazy. Especially if he plays another 5 good years and found a way to get another title. Even 1 more trip to the finals.

"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful." John Wooden

"Gee, Grantland sucks and readership is really falling. I better write something controversial so some of the forums pick it up and I get more hits".

meh, site traffic shows no glaring signs off continual falloff, and Simmons has done an excellent job of hiring a talented team of writers. I mean heck, he's got Sebastian Pruiti working for him, and Pruiti knows 100x as much basketball as he does.

Balki-B wrote:Although Barkely and Malone are statistically in the discussion, they are also both automatically disqualified because they've never won a ring.

Swap Malone or Barkley with McHale. Do you think the Celtics would have won even one championship less with either Karl Malone or Charles Barkley instead of McHale on the team? I would argue that they would have been improved with such a move. And that's what should be evaluated when we are talking about players, not some rings someone won, because the circumstances were good for him. Brian Cardinal did not become a better player, only because he now has won a championship. Neither did Dirk Nowitzki or Jason Kidd.

Karl Malone played great basketball, had a huge impact even really late in his career. Charles Barkley was probably the best offensive power forward ever, that should count for something. Look at how they played basketball and how much of an impact the individual players had on that, not at championships won.

Imagine Nowitzki suffers more than just a minor injury to his finger in the first game of the finals last year, imagine he had suffered a broken wrist and would have been out. No championship for the Mavericks. What would be the argument here? Would Nowitzki now be a worse player? The logic behind the "ring argument" is completely absurd, given the fact that it is influenced by circumstances a lot. Putting someone like McHale ahead of Barkley or Malone, because McHale won some rings as a 2nd/3rd fiddle is just wrong.

Balki-B wrote:Although Barkely and Malone are statistically in the discussion, they are also both automatically disqualified because they've never won a ring.

Swap Malone or Barkley with McHale. Do you think the Celtics would have won even one championship less with either Karl Malone or Charles Barkley instead of McHale on the team? I would argue that they would have been improved with such a move. And that's what should be evaluated when we are talking about players, not some rings someone won, because the circumstances were good for him. Brian Cardinal did not become a better player, only because he now has won a championship. Neither did Dirk Nowitzki or Jason Kidd.

Karl Malone played great basketball, had a huge impact even really late in his career. Charles Barkley was probably the best offensive power forward ever, that should count for something. Look at how they played basketball and how much of an impact the individual players had on that, not at championships won.

Imagine Nowitzki suffers more than just a minor injury to his finger in the first game of the finals last year, imagine he had suffered a broken wrist and would have been out. No championship for the Mavericks. What would be the argument here? Would Nowitzki now be a worse player? The logic behind the "ring argument" is completely absurd, given the fact that it is influenced by circumstances a lot. Putting someone like McHale ahead of Barkley or Malone, because McHale won some rings as a 2nd/3rd fiddle is just wrong.

Who is Malone running PNR with on the Celtics. Lets not ignore the fact Malone was being fed by one of the greatest point guards in league history. Are the Celtics going to run 50 PNR with Malone when they have Bird and Parish as well.

Just to note if you ask Charles Barkley he would say Kevin Mchale is better than him and Karl Malone.

"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful." John Wooden

Gosh everyone is on Dirk's nuts after he wins one championship. Suddenly his fadeaway is God's gift to basketball but he's had that shot for years and somehow teams seemed just fine beating him. The dude had a good run, I agree, awesome job, phenomenal player.

Better than Duncan? Wtf. Better than KG? Let's consider offense and defense here. Dirk has been historically great on only one side of the ball. But whatever, I know in three years no one will be mentioning Dirk in this conversation because everyone's going to be on to whoever else the last championship winner was.

Come on now.. You're gonna sit there and have Kobe in your username and use MVP voting as a metric to measure someone's abilities?

he's not suggesting the MVP votes are an indicator of ability. he's saying that MVP votes are a measure of media respect. and by that criteria, dirk was not underrated before winning a title

dirk has been elite or near-elite offensively and poor in all other areas of the gamebarkley was even better offensively and an excellent reboundermalone was also better offensively, a strong rebounder and good defensively, playing at an all-star level 'till age THIRTY-SEVEN

dirk's ring does not bridge the gap between him and barkley, let alone him and malone. and the fact that dirk coasted early in the season after winning a ring does not lead me to believe he's ever gonna get there

dice wrote:he's not suggesting the MVP votes are an indicator of ability. he's saying that MVP votes are a measure of media respect. and by that criteria, dirk was not underrated before winning a title

dirk has been elite offensively and poor in all other areas of the game

I can't say that Dirk isn't poor in all other areas of the game but he won the MVP award because he was the best player on the best team. I just didn't know that anyone really puts much thought into it (the voters) as to who gets the award. So I guess I don't consider it as a measure of media respect moreso as a here's your reward for having the best record.